


Getting It

by FancyMeetingYouHere



Category: GOT7
Genre: Bambam gets the wrong kind of attention, Brother Feels, Brother-AU, I'm soft for these boys, Mark takes being a brother seriously, Mark's an empath, MarkBam sibling feels, lots of description of feelings, nothing happens though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-13
Updated: 2020-10-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:40:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26995300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FancyMeetingYouHere/pseuds/FancyMeetingYouHere
Summary: Being the empathic older brother is hard when your little brother finds himself with the wrong kind of eyes focused on him. Being the younger brother to said empath isn't any easier. Mark and Bambam figure some things out in the way siblings tend to do.With love and with insults.
Relationships: Kunpimook Bhuwakul | BamBam & Mark Tuan
Comments: 8
Kudos: 19





	Getting It

**Author's Note:**

> I'm having all the sibling feels. You can thank my real-life siblings for that. In any case, I adore MarkBam sibling shenanigans and hope someone else does too!! Please, enjoy, and if you have some time to leave a comment I'd love to hear from you!

Traffic is being a bitch. It’s late enough that Mark can weave around cars without causing any accidents, but not yet _that_ late he can simply put his foot down like he wants to.

“You still inside?” he demands from his hands-free phone on the console, just shooting underneath an orange traffic light. Bambam answers with faked confidence.

“Yeah, I’m good. It’s cold out so they said I could wait as they closed up.” He lets out an airy laugh. “Don’t worry too much. It’s probably nothing.”

Mark growls at himself and glares the stupidly slow sedan in front of him off the road. “Stay inside,” he stresses.

“Hyung-”

“Bambam, stay inside until I get there!”

He takes the next corner with too much speed, but he’s only a minute away from the small coffeeshop his little brother frequents as a study spot. With gritted teeth he glares at the road, slowing down out of necessity rather than want.

“Are they still there?” He asks when Bambam’s been quiet for a while.

The younger sounds small. “Yeah. Just across the street.”

Mark grips the wheel tighter. “I’m turning onto your street now.” His eyes are already scanning as he says it, spotting a few pedestrians but mostly parked cars in between the darker buildings. The street is almost deserted.

Bambam heaves a sigh of relief. “Thanks, hyung. I’m coming.”

“Bam-” he starts, but the dial tone already blares out of his car’s speakers. With a colorful curse he hits the gas again, focusing on the figure exciting the coffee shop. Bambam’s still small, even at nineteen, and to Mark he looks even thinner than usual with his turtleneck, long coat, and a laptop bag hanging from his shoulder.

There’s an empty spot next to the sidewalk just a dozen steps from the coffee shop and Mark squeals into it. Bambam is now in his right side-view mirror, but movement on the left side of the street has him glaring out.

Just as Bambam said, four guys are standing aimlessly on the sidewalk, hands deep in their pockets and eyes on the coffee shop. One of them has made a few steps in their direction. Mark can’t see anything from this distance but his brown jacket and ripped jeans, but it’s obvious the man is twice the width of Bambam, and at least a head taller. Just as the passenger door opens, Bambam letting out a cheerful ‘hey, hyung’, Mark does what he knows he shouldn’t.

The men are staring relentlessly, the one guy at the front clearly focused on Bambam, and Mark reaches out. The extra feelings overwhelm him. First there’s Bambam, his brother a familiar burst of jitters and excitement, though overshadowed by fierce anxiety and relief. No matter what the younger said, he was scared.

Then come the four unknown. It seeps in like water through rocks, first slow then crashing like a waterfall. The lust and angry confusion consume him, coating his soul with icy chills and the distinct feeling someone’s hands reached inside and _squeezed_. The feeling makes him sick. The intent with which these men have been leering at his brother has built into a crescendo that now comes crashing down into a tidal wave of fury and irritation. They’re mad Bambam got away, furious at Mark for showing up, and there, right at the center of the fucked up cocktail, is the intense desire to _try again._

Patience sits like a viper in the middle, caressing and fanning the other feelings until Mark is ready to puke. These men aren’t opportunists, they’re hunters. Bambam, to them, is nothing but fair game, and the longer Mark listens to their feelings, the more they begin to move into the thrill of the chase, the syrupy taste of catching the unattainable.

A sudden hand on Mark’s shoulder has him gulping for air, eyes snapping open. He hadn’t realized he closed them. Bambam leans in, face worried.

“Hyung? What happened? You were gone for a while.”

He drags in air as he shakes his head. Not now. He feels sick, like a flu without the fever. His hands shake as he starts the car, Bambam going quiet next to him when they shoot away and take three fast turns. Two left, one right.

With distance, the feelings fade. What they leave behind is _wrong_. A layer of their thoughts, of their intentions, sticks to Mark. It lingers like tar on the edges of his empathy.

“Hyung?” Bambam asks quietly when he turns onto another, busier street. The boy is turned in his seat, eyes wide in the edge of Mark’s vision. “You don’t look good.”

 _Fuck._ Bambam sounds young. Bambam _is_ young. No matter what the boy says, Mark has six years on him and can still distinctly remember the tiny squirt who came up to his chest with that broad smile and endless enthusiasm.

Those men looked at his brother and saw an object, a prize. Mark shoots a glance to the side and sees everything he’s willing to die for.

Bambam’s face goes alarmed. “Hyung, you look- maybe you should stop the car!”

He does.

He rams the vehicle to the side, clipping the sidewalk in his haste. He’s still breathing hard. Bambam yells, worried, but Mark kills the engine and throws the door open. With no time to get out, he simply leans out and hacks up what feels like the remnants of those twisted feelings.

The bile burns his throat. Tears squeeze out even though his eyes are closed and Bambam’s hand runs carefully over his back. After only a few seconds it stops.

“Sorry,” he breathes, leaning back into his seat as he blinks the left-over water out of his eyes. Bambam pats his shoulder.

“Feeling better?” It’s said with a wry smile, the young boy’s face still worried.

Mark nods, getting his breathing back under control. “They caught me off guard.”

Bambam nods a little helplessly, then pulls a bottle of water out of the glove compartment. He hands it over wordlessly.

Gratefully, Mark rinses his mouth, closing the door after he spits it out, then takes a few small sips. The horrid taste in his mouth dulls down, though nothing can erase the sour afterthought of what he just felt. It sends a shiver of disgust down his spine.

“Those guys?” Bambam breaks the silence, eyes on the console in between them. “They made you feel like that?”

There’s no way around this. “Yeah.”

Bambam nods, leaning back in his seat and eyes now on his lap. “So, if you hadn’t shown up …” He leaves the rest unsaid, distorted images invading Mark’s thoughts anyway. He shoves them away.

“But I did,” he turns to Bambam. When there’s nothing more, he bumps his little brother’s shoulder, softening his voice. “You know I’ll always come when you need me.”

He receives an eyeroll and a grouched ‘sure’. It leaves him uncertain. Before he can shut it out, prickles of fear filter in. They’re soft like snow, but just as plentiful. Lightning strikes of anger streak across, as does a firm doses of self-loathing.

Mark flinches. “Don’t-” his voice breaks and he hastens to control his own anger lest he explodes. “This is not on you,” he says with conviction. He wishes Bambam would look at him, but the boy is still frowning at the hands in his lap. “You are not responsible for their thoughts, nor their ac-”

“I’m responsible for you,” Bambam whispers harshly.

The comment jars Mark’s entire thought process to an end and he almost laughs. Until he spots the grim expression Bambam wears. The younger takes a deep breath, hands balling into fists. He’s still staring at them. “You think I like watching you like this? You always come when I call and you always save me and I’m _always_ fine.” He finally looks up, the raw anger on his face amplifying the maelstrom of hate slamming into Mark. He chokes on the intensity. “No one has ever hurt me,” Bambam continues heatedly. “But they always hurt you! And all I can do is just- I sit here and hand you a water bottle!” he barks out a harsh laugh as he trembles.

Mark can only watch mutedly. The clashing emotions are so sudden and _new_ , he wonders painfully how long this has been festering and how feverishly Bambam must have been hiding it. None of it ever bled through, or maybe Mark’s been exceptionally blind to his brother lately. That last thought drags his mood all the way down without any help from Bambam’s ridiculous claims.

“You’re doing it again,” Bambam grumbles. He glares at Mark’s confused face. “You’re making it _your_ responsibility how _I_ feel. Don’t.”

“I don’t-”

Bambam huffs. “You always do that!” His voice loses tension. “I get why, but it doesn’t leave a lot of room for me to help. Or _any._ I can’t do what you do, but-” he takes a deep breath. “But you’re my brother too.”

“Well, yeah,” Mark starts, unsure. He can’t make sense of the emotions anymore. Bambam is bleeding into his own, confusion mixing with anger and resentment, but it’s impossible to tell whose it is. A headache begins behind his left ear.

Mark frowns. “I am your brother, you stupid, which is why you _call me_ when jerks like that show up. You always call me-”

“Just drive!” Bambam explodes. The hot wave of anger scorches Mark’s nerves. “Just drop it and drive because you just- you don’t get it!”

“Like hell I don’t!” Mark yells back. In the confines of his car his voice is louder than usual. His hands shake and rage clogs his throat as he stares at Bambam pressing his lips into a white line. He knows he’s riding on anger that isn’t his own, but emotions are tricky things to get under control once you’ve been exposed. And Mark is a live wire at the best of times. “I’ve been ‘getting you’ since you were born! And blaming yourself for what those bastards were about to do is a one-way ticket to self-hatred of the worst kind. The kind that stays forever and I’ll be damned if I let you-”

“Fuck you, Mark! I already hate myself!”

The cold conviction drips into Mark’s belly. He stares wide-eyed, Bambam’s words proven by his furious face and the phantom disease spreading its grabby fingers through his limbs. His little brother isn’t lying.

Mark’s anger is broken by this new feeling, by the helplessness and sickly fury that simmers from Bambam’s skin like heat from a car in summer. The other is drenched with it, and Mark is too in less than a second. He shakes a hollow head.

“Bambam, stop,” his voice croaks, Bambam seething in place and glaring holes in the dash. “Don’t thi-”

A knuckle taps the window on Bambam’s side. There’s nothing but a pale face carrying a sneer, the man’s brown jacket giving him away if his feelings didn’t crush Mark’s chest with a sledgehammer.

All four are back, surrounding the car, and it’s too much coupled with Bambam’s darkest feelings. It’s like trying to swim with weights tied to his feet and Mark goes under before he can take a breath.

He hunches over the steering wheel with no vision and sound tunneling. A hand on his shoulder. _Too many feelings!_ He needs to sort through them. Figure it out. _Where am I?_ He’s angry. He’s volatile. He wants to hurt something. He wants to hurt Bambam.

_That’s not me!_

He chokes. His head feels ready to crack at imaginary seams as his heart thunders. The men pound the window, a jeering laugh cutting through the static. It’s too much. He was too open. _Never let down your walls._ He can’t breathe. _I want to hurt him._ He can’t think. _Shut up!_. He can’t feel. There’s too much want and none of it is Mark. He’s sinking.

.

.

.

_Warm._

A hand holds his shoulder tight enough to hurt. Reality seeps in.

_Safe._

Mark takes a breath. Then another. His throat hurts and maybe he was screaming. There’s still pounding from outside, but it’s abated in frequency. The water is receding, sunlight shattering the dark prison that was never truly his.

_Comfort. Hope. Gratitude. Joy. Friendship. Trust._

Mark blinks. He’s lying on his arms on the steering wheel. His body shakes. After a quick check there’s nothing physically wrong, nothing beyond the steady headache and a sore throat. The inside is even better. Gentle waves rock him, washing away the prickly anger and suffocating lust. It takes longer than usual to identify the source, especially since Bambam’s hand is still crushing his shoulder. He turns to his little brother with a dozen questions, only for all of them to die when he spots the tears on Bambam’s face. The boy has his eyes closed, lips pressed into a line and about as white as the rest of his skin.

Baffled, Mark stares at him. “Bambam?”

The boy jumps, eyes flying open and hand pulled back. He takes one look at Mark, then outside, and points his eyes firmly at his lap again. “Please, drive.” His voice is wobbly, but determined.

With one look outside, Mark understands why. The men are still there, though many a curious eye have made it so they’ve stopped knocking. That doesn’t mean they’ve stopped leering. In fact, Mark thinks their expressions have gone from predatory to murderous.

He revs the engine and feels disappointed when he just misses one of them as he pulls away. It’s not until they’re a few minutes out that he realizes he stopped feeling them completely while they were still there. He shoots a quick look at Bambam, even more confused than before. Whatever the younger was feeling, something he translates loosely to _love_ , it was enough to pierce through everything and keep it at bay so that Mark could put his walls back up. He’s tempted to bring them back down, to know what exactly is going through Bambam as he plucks furiously at a loose strand on his jacket, but that’s a breach of privacy he hates to indulge in. Despite what he yelled earlier, he doesn’t make it a habit to go poking around in other people’s feelings.

When they finally reach Bambam’s dorm building, Mark plunges them into silence by turning off the engine. They sit until Bambam sighs. “Thanks, hyung. For taking me home.”

But the odd phrasing shows there’s more to it.

“How did-” Mark cuts himself off, biting his lip. “What happened just now?”

Bambam shrugs, unbuckling his seatbelt. He moves to get out but Mark grabs his shoulder. “Bambam, what happened? You were- ” he swallows the word ‘crying’, not wanting to make it sound like an accusation instead of the simple worry that it is.

“It’s fine,” Bambam says, but his voice is too casual, too airy. Mark pushes him, partly out of curiosity, and partially because that’s just how they work. When one of them shuts down, the other starts poking the sore spot.

“Who were you thinking of?” Mark wonders, pulling his hand back when Bambam freezes, head still turned away. He can’t help his grin as he imagines all the reasons for Bambam to be shy and tight-lipped about their identity. “Was it that guy you’ve been seeing? Yugyeom?”

It finally garners a response as Bambam groans. “Eeew!” He throws himself back in his seat with a huff. “Way to make it weird, hyung!”

Mark giggles at the overdone pout. “What?” he pulls out his best angel smile. “I’m just showing a healthy interest into my little brother’s _interests_.”

Bambam rolls his eyes and crosses his arms. His cheeks color slightly in the dim light and Mark leans back with a grin.

“Come on, man. Who was it? I swear I’ll only tease you until the wedding … and possibly when you have kids.”

Bambam rolls his eyes again, mumbling something too soft to hear, his cheeks darker.

Mark leans in closer, still grinning. “What?”

“I said, ‘you’.”

His grin falls away and Mark blinks, not following. “Me what?”

Bambam sinks a little, pouting. “I was thinking about you.”

“…” Mark can’t see if he’s joking, frozen in his seat as he remembers the meticulous love in those waves, the intricate design of comfort and safety coupled with mischievous joy and resounding peace. “…what?” he breathes after too many silent seconds of staring.

Bambam shoots him a vulnerable look. “Just … you. I thought about- you’re always there. Even when I was a kid. When I needed something, I could always ask. And we’d fight and be so done with each other, but I never had to be scared that you’d leave.” His voice goes thick. “No matter how much I yelled at you, you always came back to help me. And I hated you sometimes and just- I’ve wanted to punch you so many times, but- you never made me feel like less, despite everything you can do. You let me be me and that- I don’t even think you know that you do that.” He shrugs, doing his best to pretend like it’s not a big deal, like he isn’t sniffling to hide the evidence. “So, yeah. I just thought of you and what that- what that means to me.” He hides his face even more, mumbling guiltily. “You once said that strong enough feelings can block everything out. So, I tried. Guess it worked.” He shrugs again.

Going by the following silence, he’s done talking. Now would be where Mark jumps in. He opens his mouth, and then just sits. There’s a lump in his throat as he stares at this stupid kid, this annoying brat. It’s impossible to describe how badly he wants to prank Bambam again like that one Halloween a few years back, and how his fists itch with the desire to break anyone else who tries to do the same. This pain in the ass is his little brother, and knowing that _that_ is what he means to the kid, to that little six-year-old who came wobbling into his room with a sandwich and a glass of water when he got that nasty flu one winter, is overwhelming to say the least. Eventually Bambam glances to the side.

“Did I-uh, did I break you?” He giggles nervously. “I mean, I’ve been trying for years but if I’d known-”

Mark reaches out and ruffles his hair, cracking a strained grin at the flailing arms and curse words sent his way. He waits until Bambam fixes him with a luke-warm glare to tell him. “You’re my brother, you moron.”

At first Bambam gawks at him, visibly gearing up for a ‘takes one to know one’-argument, but Mark cuts him off. “And I love you too.”

Bambam deflates, going wide-eyed and squirming in his seat. “Sap,” he mumbles.

Mark giggles, attacking his hair once more. “Twig.”

This time his brother squeaks and flees out the door, yanking his bag out as an afterthought. “Bambam!” Mark calls him back before he can walk off.

The teen bends down with a pout. “What?”

“You call me if you need me, okay?” Mark’s close to begging, seeing the hesitation flit across Bambam’s face. “Bammie, you’re my brother. You _call me._ And-” he lets out a sigh as Bambam perks up- “I promise I’ll be more careful.”

Bambam regards him seriously, then beams. “Deal.”

With a last wave he closes the door and Mark only debates for a half a second before he turns the key and opens the passenger side window. “Bammie!” he yells, seeing the younger turn with a long-suffering expression. Mark grins and shouts over the running engine. “You could always come to the gym with me! We could work on those noodles you call limbs!”

Bambam promptly starts walking away again, giving him the finger over his shoulder. “No thanks, beefcake!”

Mark giggles to himself. That’s the Bambam he knows.

(That same night, four men are admitted to the hospital claiming to have been mugged. They lie when the police ask for a description, unable to bruise their already cracked ego any further by admitting they were bested by two buff kids in their twenties.

At the same time, Mark and his partner toast with a cold beer, having just finished rapping each other’s bruised knuckles. Mark grins. Having Jackson be the same martial arts nut that he is with a protective streak rivaling his own has never been more satisfying.)


End file.
